How can we know the dancer from the dance? video registration edited from material online. Excerpt, original duration 22 minutes.

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Performance, 786 hours, Utrecht Central Station, 2016

Documentation of the performance is not filmed by ourselves, but edited solely out of material found online.

How can we know the dancer from the dance? is a performance which took place at the Central railway station of Utrecht. A half year long four performers were present daily among the crowds of people thronging through the station. These performers did nothing to stand out in the crowd, in fact they behaved exactly like everyone else: taking a sip from a paper coffee cup, checking the news on their phone, or just ambling around aimlessly, waiting for a friend to show up. Only they did so all four at the same time, in perfect synchronicity.

This synchronous choreography of everyday movements is based on a large video archive of behaviour at that same station. The scènes selected from this extensive study of body language where copied until the last detail in a month long rehearsal process. This procedure gives the performance a documentary quality – all scenes are based on real life events – but also a richness of information that can only come from the density of reality. It is grounded in the idea that that which surrounds us everyday, that which we find boring and normally don’t notice, can actually learn us a lot when taken a closer look at.

The performance was consciously not publicised, it had to be individually discovered by the audience.The spectators at the station stood still and watched because they noticed something, not because a sign or booklet told them to do so.

People that walk through the group of actors without having noticed the performance – some people even stand still right in the middle of it without being aware of what’s going on – they unconsciously become an extra actor in the performance. With a minimum of means, a theatrical space is created where it is least expected. How can we know the dancer from the dance? infiltrates in the environment, subtly and subversively changing the behaviour of the passerby.

The Stedelijk Museum is proud to present the new performance by Sander Breure and Witte van Hulzen, A Family Portrait, This performance is part of the performance and lecture series Stage It! (Part 3): SCRIPTED. The work consists of a large-scale installation, which is presented as an autonomous object, entitled Een Woonkamer, and a script performed by four actors. The two works relate to each other as a family relates to the home it lives in: the house is their property, and they belong together, but they are also two separate things in the world.

Een Familieportret (A Family Portrait) is a portrait of the average Dutch family, which the artists have managed to locate with the help of data from the Central Bureau of Statistics. The script of the performance is based on sound recordings made at the family’s home. Een Familieportret contains fragments from the family’s daily life, arranged over the course of one day. Superficially, the text is about trivial everyday events, but the subtext touches on broader social developments which characterize the age in which we live. For example, English expressions widely used in Dutch are characteristic of the dominance of Anglo-Saxon culture, and the difficulties the mother faces with her application for unemployment benefits illustrate the effect of the economic crisis in Europe at the micro level. Many things are not expressed, and the tensions, doubts, and uncertainties which play a role in this “average” family are often concealed in small, apparently meaningless sentences. The script is clearly visible during the performance. In this way, Een Familieportret becomes documentary theater, in which language serves as an objet trouvé, and the everyday way in which families relate to each other at home becomes an alienating performance.

Three actors are performing in the fictitious gallery Ansgar Lund. This fake gallery is mirroring the conditions of the art market and the people around it. We developed a concept for a performance that focuses on the phenomena of the gallery and the art fair itself. It is an ongoing performance that was on view during the entire period of the fair.

Presented as an installation in a loop, this small study into the nature of experience consists of a choreography constructed out of simple every day movements. The choregraphy is synchonized with three seperate soundtracks on headphones, one with music, one with sound and one with text. Each allows for a different interpretation of the same choreography. In the memory of the viewer these three intertwine.

The protagonist of this performance is Pastor Emmanuel Adeshina Jayeola, who normally works in a Pentecostal church in Amsterdam Zuidoost. The performance consists of two parts: an exorcism and a sermon.

The exorcism features a live video feed and several video and sound effects that are created by us. The performance is quite intense: the Pastor is in a state of trance, speaking in tongues and has physical contact with the audience members.

The sermon is written by the Pastor in collaboration with us. It treats the subjects of a spiritual reality and how spirits and demons influence our lives. He also explains that the most fundamental of questions – that of the meaning of life – can be answered by religion alone.

We developed a performance for the “no holds barred program” at Art Amsterdam 2010 in which the phenomena of the gallery and the art fair itself are exposed. The performance continues for the entire five days of the fair.

We founded “Galeri Ansgar Lund” which instead of taking part in the fair, makes the fair a decor for a performance in which the focus lies not on objects, but on a temporary situation between people. In Galeri Ansgar Lund artworks become props and people become art.

In collaboration with tegenboschvanvreden, supported by Flatland Foundation

A traditional fanfare from the Dutch village of Velp plays and performs the music and choreography of Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen. The fanfare is divided up into smaller groups, each with their own characteristic music and choreography. The environment where the piece was performed, a church, also plays a role; over a speaker system environmental sounds are played back (rustling of the crowd, mumbled prayers and the tolling of the bells) and the church organ is played live together with the fanfare. The piece is presented as an installation, an ongoing performance during which the audience can enter and leave whenever they want.